1. Field
The embodiments relate to addresses assignment for adaptor interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
An adaptor or multi-channel protocol controller enables a device coupled to the adaptor to communicate with one or more connected end devices over a physical cable or line according to a storage interconnect architecture, also known as a hardware interface, where a storage interconnect architecture defines a standard way to communicate and recognize such communications, such as Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) (SAS), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), etc. These storage interconnect architectures allow a device to maintain one or more connections, such as direct point-to-point connections with end devices or connections extending through one or more expanders. Devices may also interconnect through a switch, an expander, a Fibre Channel arbitrated loop, fabric, etc. In the SAS/SATA architecture, a SAS port is comprised of one or more SAS PHYs, where each SAS PHY interfaces a physical layer, i.e., the physical interface or connection, and a SAS link layer having multiple protocol link layer. Communications from the SAS PHYs in a port is processed by the transport layers for that port. There is one transport layer for each SAS port to interface with each type of application layer supported by the port. A “PHY” as defined in the SAS protocol is a device object that is used to interface to other devices and a physical interface. Further details on the SAS architecture for devices and expanders is described in the technology specification “Information Technology—Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)”, reference no. ISO/IEC 14776-150:200x and ANSI INCITS.***:200x PHY layer (Jul. 9, 2003), published by ANSI; details on the Fibre Channel architecture are described in the technology specification “Fibre Channel Framing and Signaling Interface”, document no. ISO/IEC AWI 14165-25; details on the SATA architecture are described in the technology specification “Serial ATA: High Speed Serialized AT Attachment” Rev. 1.0A (January 2003).
Within an adaptor, the PHY layer may include the parallel-to-serial converter to perform the serial to parallel conversion of data, so that parallel data is transmitted to layers above the PHY layer, and serial data is transmitted from the PHY layer through the physical interface to the PHY layer of a receiving device. In the SAS specification, there is one set of link layers for each SAS PHY layer, so that effectively each link layer protocol engine is coupled to a parallel-to-serial converter in the PHY layer. The physical interfaces for PHYs on different devices may connect through a cable or through a path etched on the circuit board to connect through a circuit board path.
As mentioned, a port contains one or more PHYs. Ports in a device are associated with physical PHYs based on the configuration that occurs during an identification sequence. A port is assigned one or more PHYs within a device for those PHYs within that device that are configured to use the same SAS address within a SAS domain during the identification sequence, where PHYs on a device having the same SAS address in one port connects to PHYs on a remote device that also use the same SAS address within a SAS domain. A wide port has multiple interfaces, or PHYs and a narrow port has only one PHY. A wide link comprises the set of physical links that connect the PHYs of a wide port to the corresponding PHYs in the corresponding remote wide port and a narrow link is the physical link that attaches a narrow port to a corresponding remote narrow port. Further details on the SAS architecture is described in the technology specification “Information Technology—Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)”, reference no. ISO/IEC 14776-150:200x and ANSI INCITS.***:200x PHY layer (Jul. 9, 2003), published by ANSI.